Hopes of the French

These taxation schemes were properly regarded as direct blows against the liberties of the Americans, and they excited almost as violent opposition as did the stamp act. The colonial assemblies boldly protested against them. The Assembly of New York disregarded the disabling act, while the royal governors, with their numerous retainers, as blind as their masters, elated by the prospect of being independent of the colonial assemblies, eagerly promoted the schemes of the ministry and so fostered opposition among the people. A warm discussion in Parliament, concerning the rebellious acts of the colonies, revealed the fact to the world that the Americans were on the eve of open rebellion. In the course of the debate they were charged with a design to revolt and set up an independent government. They were called "rebels" and "traitors." Even the cautious Lord Mansfield drew a picture of the "folly and wickedness of the American incendiaries," and the fatal effects upon England which the deplorable event of the separation of the colonists from the mother country might produce.

The prospect of disruption delighted the French ministry. Ever since the conquest of Canada, by which the French had been shorn by the English of a vast domain in America, the pride of that nation had been humbled at the feet of British power. There was a deep-seated determination to strike a deadly retaliatory blow when opportunity should offer. From the time of the treaty of Paris in 1763, the French government, seeing disaffection in the colonies, cherished the hope that it would grow into an open rupture which would lead to the withdrawal of those colonies from the government of Great Britain. That dismemberment of the empire was looked forward to by the French as the consummation of their wishes, and they resolved to help the Americans whenever they should enter upon a struggle, with arms, for their independence. That struggle now seemed to be near, and the chief French minister, Choiseul, resolved to send an emissary to America to spy out the real intentions of the colonists, if possible. That emissary was the Baron De Kalb, a colonel from the Franco-German province of Alsace, who was afterward a general in the American army of the Revolution, and fell a martyr, near Camden, in South Carolina. He was instructed to ascertain the wants of the Americans in respect to engineers and artillery officers, and munitions of war and stores; the strength of their purpose to withdraw from Great Britain; their resources in troops and fortifications; the plan of their projected revolution, and the character of their leaders, civil and military. The French minister did not comprehend the real loyalty of the Americans, nor their power of endurance and patience under provocation. The baron performed the service, but his report did not warrant Choiseul in hoping for an immediate rupture. From that time it was the cherished policy of the French government to foster the quarrel, and to give aid to the Americans whenever they should strike a blow for freedom. They did so, as we shall observe hereafter, for the sole purpose of injuring Great Britain and restricting her power.

Meanwhile the colonists were preparing for resistance to the taxation schemes. The common danger had thoroughly united them, and a feeling of nationality was budding in their hearts. The committees of correspondence kept each colony fully acquainted with the sentiments and acts of the others. The assemblies and people took the broad view expressed by James Otis, that "taxes on trade, if designed to raise a revenue, were just as much a violation of their rights as any other tax." The colonial newspapers, then about thirty in number, were becoming tribunes of the people, and in them the principles of liberty and the rights of the colonists were ably discussed in short essays. Among the most effective of these were a dozen "Letters of a Farmer of Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies," which were published in a Philadelphia newspaper in the summer and autumn of 1767. In a style of great simplicity, vigor and animation, their author (John Dickinson, an eminent lawyer of Philadelphia) portrayed the unconstitutionality of the conduct of Great Britain, the imminent peril to liberty in America which existed, and the fatal consequences of a supine acquiescence in ministerial measures-more fatal as precedents than by the immediate calamities they were calculated to produce. Votes of thanks were given to Dickinson at public meetings; and in May, 1768, an association in Philadelphia, called the Society of Fort St. David, presented an address to him "in a box of heart of oak," with suitable inscriptions. On the top was represented the Phoenician cap of liberty on a spear, resting on a cipher of the letters "J. D." ; underneath the cipher, in a semi-circular label, were the words "Pro Patria." Around the whole, the following: "The gift of the Governor and Society of Fort St. David to the author of THE FARMER'S LETTERS, in grateful testimony to the very eminent service thereby rendered to this country, 1768." On the inside of the lid was the following inscription: "The Liberties of the British colonies in America asserted with Attic eloquence and Roman spirit, by John Dickinson, barrister-at-law."

The immediate and subsequent effects of these letters were wonderful. The colonial assemblies noticed them, and upon the broad grounds of right and justice laid down in these essays, they denounced the acts of Parliament. Non-importation associations which had been dissolved on the repeal of the stamp act were reorganized, and that powerful machinery almost destroyed the commerce with England. Dr. Franklin caused the Letters to be republished in London, with a preface written by himself, in 1768. They were also translated into French and published in Paris.